“Culture and community are caught in a circular, tautological reasoning… culture is being invoked to solve problems that previously were the province of economics and politics.”
George Yúdice, The Expediency of Culture (2003: 25)

The idea that multiculturalism is in crisis is a predominant feature of the post-9/11 world and has become a pronounced aspect of public debate across Western Europe. (More …)

Nick Griffin was right about one thing: Churchill would have felt at home in the BNP.

The appearance of Nick Griffin, leader of the British Nartional Party, on BBC Question Time on October 22, 2009 has led to massive debate across the UK. Those in favour of freedom of speech advocated for Griffin to be allowed on the programme in the interests of exposing him. Those opposing said that there should be no platform for fascists and that Griffin and the BNP would only benefit from the publicity, no matter what was actually debated. I agree with the latter position and have always done so. Rare words of sense were written by Gary Younge in the Guardian reminding us that the other panelists, in particular Jack Straw, as the representative of New Labour is as guilty (if not more so) of encouraging racism in Britain as Griffin, especially considering Straw’s incendiary 2007 remarks on the niqab and the direct link between this and rising Islamophobia.

The panelists on Question Time were literally falling over themselves to show themselves to be tolerant and non-racist in the face of Griffin’s blatant racism. However, the mechanisms they chose to do this by resorted to the tried and tested recourse to patriotism (critiqued by Paul Gilroy in There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack with regards the Anti-Nazi Leagues in 1987).Griffin was asked to comment on his statement that “If Churchill were alive today, his own place would be in the British National Party.” This led to outrage expressed by the other panelists who accused the BNP of hijacking Churchill as its own. But the uncomfortable truth is that Griffin is right: if Churchill were alive he would share the beliefs of the BNP because he did so in his day. It is a delusion to think that Britain fought the Second World War because it oposed racism. Churchill, in particular, was a eugenicist, having drafted the Mental Deficiency Act of 1913, the only law on eugenics to be passed through the British parliament (albeit never out into effect). (More …)

The burkini, already causing scandal in France this week, also made headlines in Italy where, according to Il Manifesto, a burkini-clad bather was forced to leave a swimming pool in Verona due to the complaints of mothers that she was scaring their children. When questioned about the matter, Silva Polo, responsible for the municipal pools in Verona, claimed that the woman was infringing no rule by wearing her burkini. She expressed regret that the woman had never returned to the pool where she has every right to swim. Moreover, the case occurred several months ago but has only now reached the press. This demonstrates precisely how the panics about ‘multiculturalism gone wild’ circulates with situations that occur in one country very quickly being made reality in another.